


Realer Than You

by Winterling42



Series: I am also a We [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, Circus, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 09:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20486459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterling42/pseuds/Winterling42
Summary: Yasha thinks she's going crazy.Crazier, anyway.





	Realer Than You

Yasha thought she was going crazy. 

_ Crazier_, anyway. 

She could remember things again, after she’d run into that biker in Stockholm. Time made sense, mostly. But space was starting to fragment, the further west she came. 

When she was tired, she would smell salt water and grease, reach out a hand for a railing that wasn’t there. Look out and see only the ocean where there should have been fields. 

When she was hungry, she would be on foot in a German street. The noise and press of people buffeted but did not touch her. Someone else, with dirty ginger hair and a thick beard, peered back at her, then was gone. 

When she was lonely, there was a train. Or many trains in succession. She would be sitting in a luxurious seat, watching houses and trees blur past. 

There were times when the emotions weren’t hers, either. Anger would flare deep in her chest, a hot rage that Yasha never let herself feel, and with it came a humid summer night. Cursing in Mandarin--a big eighteen wheeler pulling away from her and a lean young woman with her middle finger in the air. She looked at Yasha with her teeth still bared, but the connection broke under the weight of Yasha’s fear. She sat under a cloudy sky in Latvia with her hand pressed to her chest. She stayed that way for a long time. 

And then there was the circus. It was after she’d stopped for the night, pulled off the road and hidden her bike. Yasha didn’t have the paper she’d need to cross these borders legitimately, and even if she’d wanted them she didn’t have the money. 

Still, her long wander through the Siberian wilderness had left her with the skills to make her way back through civilization unnoticed. With the increasing frequency of her visions, Yasha was just as glad to go days without seeing another human being. 

She was sitting on the side of the road to watch the moon come up, and all of a sudden there were lights. Neon reds and blues and purples danced through the forest for a moment, before resolving into carnival booths and tents and a ferris wheel that sparked and glowed in the fading sunlight. 

“Hey now,” someone said next to her. “Can’t have you sitting in the middle of the road, can we?” A thin brown hand reached out to her, covered by the tattoo of a green snake with a brilliant red eye looking up at her. The first thing she noticed was his _ coat_, a knee-length masterpiece full of stars and moons and stranger things, the embroidery glinting in the light of the circus. 

And then she saw his swords, jeweled scimitars hanging from his belt as casually as someone else might carry a purse or a backpack. Yasha took his hand without thinking, let him help her up, and never took her eyes off those swords. Oh, her gang had never had anything so pretty, but they had loved grinding down old pipes and rebar and scrap into things like swords. Things meant to cut and kill. 

“Buy me dinner first, at least,” he said, and Yasha snapped her eyes back to his face. There was something about the wrinkles at the edges of his eyes that made his smile softer, unthreatening. He held himself like a conman, a huckster, but his smile gave him away. “What’s your name?” he asked, only to pull her out of the way as a horse-drawn buggy clattered down the path. 

“Watch it, Molly!” Two girls shouted at him in unison. Molly flipped them both the bird and then turned his attention back to her. The head of a peacock just peeked out from the open collar of his shirt, it’s dark purple and green feathers curling up the side of his neck and cheek. 

“I’m...Yasha,” she said, and somehow smiled back at him. 

“Well, I’m Mollymauk, Molly to my friends. Which we most certainly are!” He put his hands on her shoulders, looking her up and down. After a second in which Yasha fought and failed to contain her blush, he announced, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so in need of a good time. Come on,” he wrapped her arm in his, like they were walking into a ball. “Let’s get you some cotton candy.” 

“I don’t--what?” Yasha laughed as he half-dragged her through the almost empty booths of games, a few carnival goers just starting to appear at the gates behind them. “You know I’m not really here, right?” For a moment she was back in the forest, walking too quickly among the dark trees with Molly still on her arm. 

“Ah, gloomy place, that,” he said, tugging gently on her elbow. They turned left and were back in the carnival, passing one of the teacup looking rides. “Nevermind that.” 

“But that is _ real_,” Yasha said, a little desperately.

Molly only turned his crooked smile up another notch, his eyes sparkling with mischief as he said, “_Is _ it?” 

Yasha groaned, feeling her mind waver under the weight of this thought. She’d had enough of unreality already. Hadn’t she? If she couldn’t remember...?

“Don’t sprain something, now,” Molly said, with just the faintest hint of worry creeping in to further ruin his persona. “Listen, if _ you’re _ real, and _ I’m _ real, which I am. On most days, anyway--” Yasha shot him an exasperated look from behind her hands. “Okay, I’m real. Then what does it matter _ how _ we’re talking, or seeing each other? What _ matters_ is that you were sitting by yourself in the middle of fucking nowhere, and I happen to have the--purely metaphorical--keys to party central! I meant it when I said you needed a good time.” 

Yasha took one deep breath, and then another. The air smelled like fried food and sugar, here, and a small group of stands were selling drinks and popcorn. Most of the tables were occupied, here. Carnival-goers looked up as Molly passed, then back at their food when no act began. While her friend acquired two bags of popcorn and a cone of literal spun sugar, Yasha closed her eyes and just...thought. It did matter, what was real and what wasn’t. But if she couldn’t deny that Mollymauk was real--and she couldn’t, not to his face--then both things had to be true. He was here, and she was there. And also they were together. 

Well, it was fantastic, unbelievable. But it was real. So Yasha decided to believe it, and having decided so, she could stop hurting her brain so much trying to logic it out. 

“Done?” Molly asked, holding out the cone like a strange fluffy bouquet. “Taste this and tell me I’m a figment of your imagination.”

“I still don’t know if that’ll really work,” Yasha said, but she smiled anyway and bit into the purple cloud. For a moment, she could feel the crackle of melting sugar on her tongue, could _ almost _ taste something sharply sweet--then it was gone. Molly stuck out his tongue to reveal a faint purple stain. He sighed and looked mournfully down at the popcorn she wasn’t going to be able to eat. 

“I shall suffer, in the name of friendship,” he announced, and dragged her off back towards the rides. 

If he was supposed to be working that night, Yasha never saw a sign of it. Molly only had to wink at whoever was manning the booths and breeze past them. “One of those nights!” he called over his shoulder, when a black woman with shoulder-length dreads and flames painted on her face tried to catch him. “I’ll be fine, Orna, no worries!” He rushed away before Orna could weigh in on the matter. 

They sat at the top of the ferris wheel for half an hour, Molly pointing out the lights of the nearby town, “And that’s the pub, down there with the red star. Nearly got kicked out last night, not my fault of course,” and trying to get Yasha to eat the popcorn. She kept expecting it to vanish when she picked it up, but seemed to be that Molly was the one who got the actual body of the food, she could still taste and enjoy it. “There’s absolutely too many ways to abuse this power,” Molly said happily, licking grease and salt off of his fingers. 

He took her through the back of the main tent, where a tall man in a red coat and top hat was telling stories to the small but dedicated audience. They saw Orna’s fire dance and Desmond’s flying violin before Gustav caught sight of them and used the shadows to sidle up before Molly could slink away. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be out telling fortunes?” the tall man asked pointedly, poking Molly’s chest pocket. 

“Oh, we’re fine without my little sideshow for one night.” Molly patted the deck of cards concealed inside his beautiful coat, glancing sideways at Yasha. “I just needed a break, Gustav.” 

“Hmm. Well, mind you don’t make a habit of it, Mollymauk. I’d hate to see you lose your flair.” The lights came back up before either of them could think of an answer, and Gustav hurriedly stepped back into the ring. 

On their way back towards the teacup ride, Yasha pulled to a stop next to the strength tester pole. A couple of people were already here, watching a man with broad shoulders and a long tangled beard step up to the plate. “How do you think this one works?” Yasha asked.

“Well, mostly by making the weight heavier than it looks, so no one hits the bell,” Molly replied. 

“No, I meant. With the thing, with us, you know. Is it me or you swinging?” 

“Oh. _ Oooh_, I see.” Molly glanced quickly between her shoulders and his own much smaller biceps. He grinned. “Let’s find out.” 

They only had to wait a couple of minutes in line, and then the minder was handing Yasha the hammer with an amused look. “Trying your luck, Molly?” he said. 

“Uh, yeah?” Yasha looked around a little frantically, but Molly just stood a few feet away and gave her a double thumbs up. So to other people, she looked like Molly. She _ was _ Mollymauk, even though he was also here. 

But it was Yasha who stood with her feet shoulder width apart on the black rubber mat, Yasha who hefted the ill-balanced maul in both hands and eyed the little weight. If her body wasn’t really here, maybe it was just that her mind expected muscles to react differently. Or that she knew how to lift heavy things, to _ hit _ heavy things, more than Molly did. Whatever the cause, the reaction was just as unbelievable as the rest of her night: the weight shot up, past green, past yellow, past orange, and hit the bell at the top with a resounding _ RING_. 

It wasn’t just the game minder who was staring at her with his mouth open, but everyone else in line as well. And her smile wasn’t as crooked as Molly’s, but it was just as sharp. Yasha handed the hammer back with a little bow and a laugh as Molly rushed up and pulled her into a one-armed hug with a wild laugh of his own. 

“Such a skinny little bloke,” someone said, as they walked away. “Wouldn’t’a thought he had it in him.”

Eventually they ended up sitting on the grass by the gates, watching people leave. Molly would guess how much they’d spent under his breath, and Yasha would try to guess what relationships there were going on. The most memorable was when an older man walked out alone, a huge stuffed pink bear clutched tightly under his arm. 

“Spent at least fifty euro getting that thing,” Molly swore up and down. 

“For a daughter, maybe?” Yasha tilted her head thoughtfully.

“Nah, for himself. _ Definitely _ for himself.” 

They both laughed, and Molly bumped his shoulder against hers, and Yasha leaned against him back. 

“Well?” he asked, turning to smile up at her from under his bangs. “I know it wasn’t a magnificent ocean cruise, but. Did you have a good night?” 

Yasha looked back up at the lights, at the ferris wheel and the games. She saw, underneath them, the forest trees and black sky somewhere to the east. “It was a good night,” she said at last. 

“Great! Excellent. And we’re both still real?” 

She was too tired for a laugh, but she did chuckle a little as she got to her feet. She could feel the connection fraying between them, fatigue and the fading edges of her headache wearing him away. “We’re both real,” Yasha said. She reached out to touch his shoulder, then thought better of it. She had only just met him, after all. “Goodnight, Mollymauk.”

“Goodnight, Yasha.”


End file.
